Sign Up for Our Amazing Newsletter!
A daily update by email. Science news, great photos, sky alerts.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
Mars opposition happens this month: It’s really easy to see
Earth and Mars are converging for a beautiful close encounter in April, an event astronomers call "the opposition of Mars."
April 2, 2014
Aurora alert for April 1 and 2
The first of three sets of solar particles are now en route to Earth and are expected to deliver glancing blows to Earth beginning April 1 and into April 2.
April 1, 2014
Rosetta sets sights on destination comet
The Rosetta spacecraft has caught its first glimpse of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko since waking up from deep-space hibernation in January.
March 28, 2014
Comet Siding Spring barrels toward sun, sprouts multiple jets
On October 19, 2014, Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring will sweep closer to Mars than our moon is to Earth. Dust shed by the comet could endanger spacecraft orbiting Mars.
March 28, 2014
Miss the moon and Venus this morning? Photos here
Photos from friends around the world of the March 27 and March 28 pairing of the moon with Venus. Thank you, everyone, for posting!
March 27, 2014
Theory suggests source of white dwarf pollution … and ominous fate for Earth
A new theory, advanced to explain how the atmospheres of collapsed stars become polluted, points to ominous fate awaiting planet Earth.
March 26, 2014
Astronomers discover first asteroid with rings
This is the smallest object by far found to have rings and only the fifth body in the solar system - after planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune - to have rings.
March 26, 2014
New solar system edge and speculations on an undiscovered planet
The new most-distant object in our solar system is 2012 VP113, whose closest point to the sun is about 80 times the Earth-sun distance.
March 26, 2014
World’s first robotic planet hunter
Every night, the Automated Planet Finder checks the weather, decides which stars to observe, and moves the telescope from star to star, looking for distant planets.
March 26, 2014
Night sky as Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies merge
As seen on Cosmos ... the collision and merger between our Milky Way galaxy and the nearby Andromeda galaxy 4 billion years from now.
March 24, 2014
